Virginia Wetland Condition Assessment Tool (WetCAT): A Model for Management

Abstract Understanding the relative level of stress from human disturbance on a wetland's capacity to perform valued ecosystem services is often part of a cumulative impact analysis associated with wetlands conservation. The ability to rapidly census wetland condition at multiple scales is attractive to resource managers, planners, and other stakeholders. Some methods assess wetland condition by levels or tiers that become subsequently finer and more data intensive down to the individual wetland scale. The Virginia Wetland Condition Assessment Tool (WetCAT) is a method that uses different levels of onsite data collection intensity to calibrate and validate remotely sensed data to develop a model that assesses wetland capacity to perform ecosystem services. To develop a repeatable, landscape-level census of wetland condition, we analyzed the surrounding landscape characteristics of all the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) mapped nontidal wetlands in Virginia ( n  = 167,004), field assessed wetlands for anthropogenic stressors ( n  = 2477), and conducted intensive wetland ecosystem endpoint analysis ( n  = 87). Each wetland was then scored for its capacity to perform habitat or water quality ecosystem services based on anthropogenic stress condition. In a subset of 128,422 NWI wetlands in the Coastal Plain and Piedmont, wetland capacity to perform habitat and water quality ecosystem services declined by approximately 3% and 1%, respectively, from 2001 to 2011. WetCAT can provide information for assessing comprehensive and cumulative wetland stress conditions at multiple scales.